Halifax Stadium Discussion

[Empire]

Originally Posted by brettinhalifax

I picked the 2 newest stadiums, they sprung to mind because, well... they're the newest NFL stadiums. Let's widen the field and look at the 5 newest NFL stadiums (distances from downtown as per google maps)

New Meadowlands Stadium - 7.5 miles from the nearest part of NYC
Cowboys Stadium - 19 miles from downtown Dallas and 15 miles from downtown Fort Worth
Lucas Oil Stadium - less than a mile from downtown Indianapolis
University of Phoenix Stadium - 17 miles from downtown Phoenix
Lincoln Financial Field - 3.8 miles from downtown Philly

As a comparison, the East Mountain sit is 6.7 miles from Hamilton's downtown. Let's say that anything closer than 6.7 miles is a downtown stadium. That means that downtown stadiums are in the minority.

But since you'll probably accuse me of cherry picking, let's look at the next five newest stadiums...

Soldier Field - 3 miles from downtown Chicago
Reliant Stadium - 7 miles from downtown Houston
Gillette Stadium - 29 miles from downtown Boston
QWest Stadium - less than a mile from downtown Seattle
Ford Field - less than a mile from downtown Detroit

Of the 10 newest NFL stadiums, 5 are less than 6.7 miles from downtown while 5 are closer than 6.7 miles from downtown. The average distance from downtown is about 8 miles.

So you're wrong, the majority of new NFL stadiums aren't downtown. And even if you want to say that only three of the above stadiums are really suburban (Phoenix, Dallas and Boston) it still means that when you said this...



...you were wrong. Suburban stadiums are still getting built.

But maybe you just meant that suburban stadiums used to be the rule, but now downtown locations are much more common.

Well, of the 7 above stadiums deemed to be "downtown", 5 of them (Seattle, Philadelphia, NY, Houston and Chicago) were built at the same location as the old stadium, which means that building stadiums downtown isn't a new idea.

So you'd still be wrong.

Most Canadian cities would be well served by having a downtown stadium. Many American cities can build a stadium outside of downtown and fill the stadium easily. The reason is that the suburbs never end, the catchment area is vast and generaly there are more sports fans per capita. I have been to Giant's stadium and the fact that it is 7.5miles from the nearest part of Manhattan means nothing. There are 14 million people in the area so filling an 85,000 seat stadium isn't an issue. There is an army of buses trains etc. serving the stadium. You do not have that in Canada. In Canada, if you build in the burbs then you have to rely on the car or have municipal transit buy into a marginal plan to bus 45,000 people to a stadium in the summer months.

Take the train:
http://www.mta.info/mta/sports/meadowlands.html